New Century artworks

New Century artworks

2000–2009

Since 2000, against the backdrop of globalisation, Chinese art has embraced international trends. Chinese artists' knowledge of world culture has rapidly increased. They have used this new global outlook to combine traditional Chinese artistic practices with Western art styles to create new, energetic and experimental forms of art that reveal the vitality, colour and multiculturalism of China today.

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42 Years Old, 2008

Oil on Canvas, Scanned Image, 100cm x 100cm x 3.

Yu Hong was born in Beijing in 1966. In 1988, she received a bachelor's degree from the Oil Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. She received a master's degree from the same department in 1996, and is now a professor at the academy.

Yu is an outstanding representative of the new generation of artists born in the 1960s and has become a dominant force in Chinese painting. Her work is famous for its solid realism and its presentation of current social issues and major news events. As a female artist, she has a profound insight into the status of women in contemporary Chinese society. This work depicts three separate incidents that happened when the artist was 42 years old. The middle panel records an incident that occurred in the countryside; the panel on the right depicts the artist's daughter rollerskating in the street; while the panel on the left shows a news report of the first Chinese trek to the moon.

Big Beijing – Old Wall, 2001

Oil on Canvas, 180cm x 180cm.

Xu Jiang, born in 1955, is from Fujian Province. He graduated from the Oil Painting Department of the Zhejiang Academy of Art in 1982. In 1988 he was a visiting fellow at the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts in Germany. He is dean and professor of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, vice-chairman of the Chinese Artists Association, and chairman of the Chinese Oil Painting Society, Zhejiang Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Zhejiang Artists Association and the Zhejiang Oil Painters Association.

For a long time after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, artists chose oil painting as the main medium to express social and historical events. However, with the advent of the new century, many artists regarded such painting styles as stereotyped, and new styles emerged drawing on Western classicism and modernism. Xu's series of historical narrative paintings shows the influence of German Neo-expressionism. This compelling and powerful work, composed from a bird's-eye view, evokes the endless vicissitudes of history witnessed by the old city walls.

Cheers No.23, 2005

Oil on Canvas, 260cm x 200cm.

Su Xinping was born in 1960 in Chinese Mongolia. In 1989 he completed his master's degree in the Printing Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. He is the dean of the Faculty of Modelling and head of the Modelling Department, tutor to doctoral students and deputy director of the Printing Committee of the Chinese Artists Association.

Nocturnal Enuresis, 2003

Oil on Canvas 200cm x 185cm.

Luo Zhongli, born in Chongqing in 1948, graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 1982 and commenced teaching there. He pursued further study and research at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, from 1984 to 1986. He became a professor in 1993. He is dean of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, chairman of the Chongqing Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the Chongqing Artists Association, director of the Chongqing Art Museum, and vice-chairman of the Chinese Artists Association and the Chinese Oil Painting Society.

Luo believes there are two sources of artistic inspiration. The first is the experience of reality; the second is imagination based on experience. After his super-realist portrait Father became famous in 1980, Luo changed the focus of his art. This work depicts the everyday occurrence of a Chinese mother helping her baby urinate at night. Luo, whose work is informed by Chinese traditional and folk arts, paints the trivial incidents of everyday rural life, using strong contrasting colours, creating an effect that is larger than life.

Embarrassment, 2000

Oil on Canvas, 140cm x 130cm.

Jia Difei, born in 1957 in Jilin province, graduated from the Department of Oil Painting of the Luxun Academy of Fine Arts. He is now a professor in the Oil Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

Breathing No.30, 2008

Oil on Canvas, 140cm x 195cm.

Liu Renjie, born in 1951 in Dalian, Liaoning Province, received his master's degree from the Department of Oil Painting of the Luxun Academy of Fine Arts in 1987 and has taught there ever since. He is now department head and professor of the Department of Oil Painting and head tutor of the First Studio.